Melody's Memories
by Carnal Coffee Bean Catastrophe
Summary: A humble fan's headcanon of River's timeline, as seen through the eyes of an older and wiser River Song.


o.O.o

She sits down. Fiddles with the bed covers. Leafs through her journal absent-mindedly. When she's sure he's not coming back anytime soon, her mad, mad Doctor, she leans back and closes her eyes. Weariness takes hold, and she replays it over and over again. The look on his face as he pulls back uncertainly, so surprised, so confused, so wary. He's always slightly wary around her now; yes, they play, and yes, they flirt, but she knows the Doctor, and he's being careful, he's not being himself. For good reason- she's not someone to be trusted, she knows that better than anyone- but it kills her all the same.

"You're acting like we've never done this before."

"We haven't."

She sighs.

And laughs a little, too, recalling their first… everything. The memories flood in, and she sifts through them slowly, taking her time, savoring each distinctive flavor as it passes through her mind. Which to pick, which to pick… One stands out, the perfect shade of TARDIS-blue, shiny and sparkly and that old-new feel, brimming with promise and adventure and everything that had been missing from her life before him. She smiles.

The first time she saw him, she remembers, he dropped in – quite unexpectedly – in the middle of her studying. The scene unfolds; her, curled up in a chair, reading contentedly. Suddenly a strange sound blasts through the library and a big blue box materializes in the History of the Andromeda Galaxy Species section. She's up and ready, gun in hand, when a tall, lanky man with too-short pants, a bow tie, and a fez stumbles out of the box, trips over the rug, and falls to the floor.

"Hello, River!" He's managed to get all of his sprawled limbs untangled and grins up cheekily at her. "You can put the gun away, you know. Nasty habit of yours, keeping guns. Haven't I told you that before?"

She's astonished, but knows better than to show it. Now. Down to business. In a flash, the gun is behind his ear – best place for a clean kill, she hates getting blood on the carpets and the librarians would fuss again – and she's eye-to-eye with him.

"Who are you?" she asks calmly, no wavering voice, steady eye contact, no outward signals of distress. She's been trained by the best, she's been through hell, and damned if she didn't pick up a few things along the way.

He frowns. "What?" His face contorts suddenly. Surprise. Fear. Pain. Then the emotions are gone, flitted away so fast she would've put them up to her imagination, had they not been so unexpected. He takes a breath. "Oh! Oh. Well then." He focuses on something in the distance for an instant, face unreadable. Then he turns back to her. Smiles. It's a fake smile, she can tell, but she can't read the emotions behind it, damnit. She's not used to this. "Hello, River Song. I'm the Doctor."

"Yes, congratulations," she grits. "Why are you here? And how do you know my name?" She's intrigued, a little, but she also knows the danger. People from unexpected places are almost normal, in her life. That she can handle with a smile and a bit of manipulation. Easy. People who know more than her – know _about_ her – that's when her trigger finger starts twitching. He looks up at her calmly, undisturbed. It unnerves her slightly; when people have a gun pressed to their heads and the holder of the gun glaring at them, they normally aren't so calm. He grins suddenly, and she forces the gun more snugly behind his ear. He leans in towards her, and she raises an eyebrow at him.

"Spoilers, Miss Song," he whispers, and his breath washes across her face. He jumps up, seemingly not even noticing the gun. She fires when he moves, but he's too quick somehow – how does he _do_ that, she wonders. The blast leaves a big smoking hole right in the middle of a row of Raxacoricofallapatorian Encyclopedias. Shit. The librarians are sure to have her head for that. She whirls around to face a laughing Doctor. He gestures towards the big blue box. "So, River, what say you we take her out on a spin? Our first adventure, eh?" A light is coming from the inside of the box, and she knows, just knows, that there's something _different_ inside. She glances again at the too-tall man with the too-short pants and too-big shoes who knows entirely too-much about her. He's grinning again, damn him. "Plenty of spoilers inside, yeah?"

She walks toward the box, ignoring his laughing eyes, his bright smile, noting the slight twinge of pain behind them. Well. She hasn't lost _all _her abilities to read people, at least. She stomps on his foot as she walks past him and into the box. Sure, it's stupid and unwise and unsafe and all that, to go with him, to not kill him on sight, as she's trained to do, when he knows so much about her. But it's the only way to find out what he knows – how he knows.

Well, she's curious, too. And curiosity's always been her downfall.

She steps inside.

o.O.o

A/N: Hey, y'all! To start off with, I own nothing. Actually, I own a pretty bad-ass snuggie with skulls on it. But Doctor-Who-verse, I own nothing. That's all the wonderful folks at BBC. But, yeah. I know it's a little rough- just came up with it in an hour- and I'm not sure about characterization. I'm picturing River as someone with more of an interesting background, something where she's trained to be cold and hard, to shoot first and ask questions later. Sparing with words, at first- not really the River we know and love, since she doesn't fully trust the Doctor yet. Or at all. And, since we know ridiculously little about Song's background, it's all down to headcanon! Isn't that lovely? Anyways, hope you enjoyed!


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